


yellow submarine

by ell (amywaited)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Cute, Fluff, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, highschool, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23863888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: “That’s awesome,” Richie says. He sounds genuine. “I always wanted a trampoline. My mom says it’s too expensive though. But when I’m grown up and living on my own, I’m going to get so many trampolines. There’ll be one in the living room, and one in the kitchen so I don’t have to climb on the counters to reach the top shelf, and I’ll put three in the garden.”Eddie laughs. “Why do you need so many? You can only go on one at a time.”“What if I have friends coming over?” Richie counters. “I’ll need lots of trampolines."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	yellow submarine

**Author's Note:**

> title from [yellow submarine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2uTFF_3MaA) by the beatles. 
> 
> enjoy!

Eddie sees the boy for the first time on a Thursday, after school when the sun is at that midway point between blushing warm and too hot. He’s sitting on a bench in his backyard, feet pulled up under his knees and head bowed. Hair, dark and rich and the sort of effortlessly curly that makes Eddie’s skin crawl, falls right in his eyes till Eddie is sure he can’t see.

The sun glints off of the corner of a pair of glasses - the brown and black tortoise shell frames that he sees on the television and on posters around town all the time, wide rimmed and round - and off the face of his watch (an obvious hand-me-down, if the tattered brown leather wrist strap is anything to go by. Maybe it belonged to his father, Eddie thinks, trying his best not to be jealous), and a thick gold band on his pinky finger. His mom’s voice echoes in the back of his head -  _ boys don’t wear jewelry, Eddie, remember that - _ and he wants to ignore her.

There’s a book of some kind planted in his lap, and a pen scrawling across it furiously, like there’s hardly enough time left to finish whatever it is he’s writing. Eddie feels the familiar tug of painful curiosity hit deep in his stomach, so he climbs off the trampoline and tucks his feet back into his shoes, and off he goes back inside.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, the boy will be out again tomorrow. If he’s lucky.

* * *

See, now, Eddie is twelve and a quarter years old and he knows exactly what he’s about. He listens well in school, passes all his tests with an A, eats his five a day and one serving of dessert. His mom drives him to and from school, he eats her packed lunches, and he jumps on the trampoline outside for half an hour every day. He kisses his mom goodnight, he reads for fifteen minutes before bed, says an evening prayer for his mother’s peace of mind and he goes to sleep at nine sharp.

It’s perfectly set up, routine and neat. It works. He knows it works. He likes that it works.

Except, today, the boy from yesterday is watching him. There’s still the book in his lap, and the tortoise shell glasses, and a different ring - silver today - and a blue biro hanging from his lip. But he’s watching Eddie.

He smiles the next time Eddie jumps high enough to peer over the fence. Eddie smiles back as an afterthought. He tries to ignore the blood rushing to his cheeks.

See, the trampoline is one of Eddie’s most prized possessions. His mom, far too strict for her own good, had been kind of reluctant to get it in the first place, but a year of compromising his bed time and eating granola bars for dessert instead of chocolate brownies had done its job. 

He thinks he could go another year with granola bars and seven o’clock bedtimes if he had to, for a trampoline. For this tiny bit of insignificant freedom. It means everything to him, and nothing to her. It feels like he’ll be able to get out, when he’s hidden behind the mesh nets and jumping higher and higher. Eddie daydreams about jumping high enough to leap out of the trampoline, across the backyard and over the top of the house, right to the street outside and never coming back.

On the next jump that’s high enough to see over the fence, the boy waves. Eddie tries to wave back, but he messes up his landing and his feet fall out from underneath him. He lands with a heavy ‘oof’ and, if he listens carefully, he can hear the kind of squashed giggles coming from next door.

* * *

The next day, it rains, and his mom doesn’t let him go within five feet of the back door. She pulls him back in with a number of excuses; “Eddie, you’ll catch your death, you’ll get pneumonia, you know how many people die from that, stay inside now, Eddie.”

He sits at the window and stares longingly out, running the tip of his finger up and down the page of his school books. Eddie can’t help but think if the boy is out there, waiting for him in the cold and wet. His heart sinks, and he decides that, tomorrow, he’ll go out whether it’s raining or not. It’s really the least he could do.

* * *

The weather clears up overnight, and Eddie has never been more glad. The school day passes slower than ever though, and he fails the science pop quiz because he’s so distracted. He tries to keep an eye out for the boy - they look the same age, so surely they must go to school together - but he can’t find him. Eddie calls out “Nitrogen,” when he’s asked to, and it turns out to be wrong. The science teacher tells him to pay more attention, but Eddie lets all he’s memorised of the periodic table leak out of his brain in favour of thinking about the boy.

He turns out to be there when Eddie gets home, though, hanging off the fence and leaning half into Eddie’s backyard. He beckons Eddie when he gets outside, and Eddie goes like he’s being pulled. He half heartedly checks the back window for his mother before coming to a stop just underneath the boy.

He’s leaning over him like this, but he looks all tall and gangly and thin and delicate anyway. Eddie feels the brief hot pangs of slight jealousy, before the boy grins and it all seems to disappear.

“What’s your name?” He asks like he’s done this before.

“Eddie,” Eddie says. He balances a hand on the fence, careful of splinters. “Yours?”

“Richie. Is that your trampoline?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s awesome,” Richie says. He sounds genuine. “I always wanted a trampoline. My mom says it’s too expensive though. But when I’m grown up and living on my own, I’m going to get so many trampolines. There’ll be one in the living room, and one in the kitchen so I don’t have to climb on the counters to reach the top shelf, and I’ll put three in the garden.”

Eddie laughs. “Why do you need so many? You can only go on one at a time.”

“What if I have friends coming over?” Richie counters. “I’ll need lots of trampolines. How old are you?”

“Twelve and a quarter,” Eddie says proudly. He’s quite proud of his age, really, his mom always says he’s mature for how old he is. 

Richie grins. “Hey, same! Well, I’m twelve and a half, but it’s close enough. Do you go to the school here?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “Do you?”

“No. We just moved here last week, so I go to the middle school across town. When I graduate, though, I’ll go to Derry High. Maybe we’ll be there together.”

Eddie smiles, too. Something about Richie’s happiness is infectious. “Yeah. I hope so.”

“Me too, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie declares. “Me too.”

“Spaghetti?” Eddie frowns. “That’s not my name. That’s stupid.”

Richie puts on a voice, an over exaggerated attempt at a British accent that makes Eddie laugh. “Quite the opposite, my boy. It’s a mighty fine name.”

They both sink into laughter, Richie hanging over the top of the fence like it isn’t digging into his stomach at all and Eddie laughs like he hasn’t in years.

* * *

The weeks pass exceedingly quicker now, rushing by faster than Eddie ever thought possible. He spends all the time he can sitting by the fence talking to Richie. Sometimes, he’ll throw copies of his homework so they can compare, and others Richie will let him borrow one of the vinyls he has, and after one particularly pleasant Christmas, he lets Eddie borrow his new CD player and a couple of the CDs his parents had bought him.

In return, Eddie writes pages of reports, detailing what he did and didn’t like about each song. He starts to hear Richie in each of the lyrics, and once he’s finished listening, he passes it over to Richie and they read it together, laughing and agreeing and compromising.

Before he knows it, even, the sun is setting and they’re going to high school tomorrow, which had always seemed so far away right until it's staring him in the face.

Eddie spends two and three quarter hours convincing his mom to let him bike to school instead of driving him to eventual success after Richie had suggested biking together. It’s going to be weird, Eddie thinks, but a good kind of weird.

“Are you nervous?” Richie asks, after several moments of gentle quiet.

“What for?”

“Tomorrow. School. Growing up.”

Richie has grown into his boots a bit more now. He’s taller - taller than anyone Eddie’s ever seen, and getting to be quite handsome, actually. His voice has started breaking already and there’s a pimple on the bridge of his nose. His glasses have gotten thicker and his manner has grown too. 

“I guess so,” Eddie answers. “I don’t know. Are you?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“Why?”

Richie shrugs. Eddie watches his shoulders move through the small hole in the fence. “It’s just going to be weird. Don’t you think the past few years have gone really quick?”

“I guess, yeah. But they’ve been fun,” Eddie says. “Time flies when you’re having fun. That’s what my mom says.”

“They have been fun,” Richie agrees. They fall back into silence, listening to each other breathe, until Richie speaks again. “Do you think we’ll change?”

“Well, I mean, I guess. That’s kinda what high school does, isn’t it?”

“No, I mean our friendship,” Richie says. “You’re my best friend, Eds.”

“We’ll always be best friends,” Eddie tells him. “You’re my best friend too.”

“Always?”

“Yeah, always,” Eddie says. He sticks his pinky finger through the gap in the fence. Richie laughs, but hooks his own finger in it anyway. “Promise,” he says, wiggling his finger. Richie wiggles back obediently, and that’s enough for now.

* * *

The first day turns out alright. Eddie knew it would, but it doesn’t stop his relief at having it be true. They did a maths quiz (Eddie came top, Richie second), and read scenes from a Shakespeare play in English. Eddie’s never heard of it, but Richie seemed to know all the words already. Really, he thinks, it couldn’t have gone better, but Richie is jittery through the whole day, up until they get on their bikes to go home and he suggests cycling past the corner shop down the street to get candy and sodas.

Eddie sucks his teeth. He hates saying no to Richie. Hates it. “I don’t think I can, Rich. My mom wants me to go home.”

Richie’s face falls. Eddie tries not to see it. “No problemo, Eduardo. We’ll just go another time. I’ll bring you a Gobstopper tomorrow, sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Eddie says, twisting his mouth into a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning? Same time?”

“You’re never getting rid of me, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says, quite seriously. “Same time, same place, and I’ll be there,” he says, and then he cycles off towards the shop, leaving Eddie to watch after him and finish the ride home. There’s a cold kind of weight in his heart, but he tries not to pay it much mind. 

* * *

“Who was that boy you were walking to school with?” His mom asks, that evening, over a meager dinner of frozen chicken nuggets and steamed broccoli. Eddie picks at it, not feeling very hungry.

“Just a friend, mama.”

“What’s his name?”

“Richie,” Eddie says. “He lives next door. We thought we could walk together.”

She nods, slowly. “Alright. Have you met his parents?”

“His mom waved us off this morning,” Eddie answers. “I have her phone number, if you want, Ma. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I just want to keep you safe, Eddie,” she tells him, which is precisely the answer Eddie expected. He lets her have it, listing off Maggie Tozier’s phone number and picking at his soggy, mushy broccoli.

* * *

High school passes in a flurry of late homework assignments, burst bicycle tires (Richie had thought it’d be a good idea to stab his wheels with nails so he would be able to grip better when it snowed. Eddie had been unable to warn him against it because he was laughing so hard), finals and studying together, sitting in the library when it's too cold to be out and breathing out frozen air in the mornings.

Eddie wouldn’t change it for the world.

They get invited to the first party in sophomore year. Well, Richie does, and he drags Eddie along with him. He tries not to let it get to him.

It’s where Richie has his first kiss, his first proper kiss. Eddie’s left in the corner sipping room temperature water because he’ll never be allowed outside again if he drinks a beer, or the mish-mash of liquor that has already caught Richie’s eye. Richie’s dragged into the middle of the room by a girl in a pair of denim shorts that are, frankly, way too short, and a sequinny top. She’s got lipstick smeared across her top lip and a wide grin and Richie goes along with her all too easily.

Eddie watches her toy with Richie’s fingers and giggle at him like the girls do in movies, and then she kisses him, and Eddie watches. The heavy jealous weight in his stomach gets all the more heavier.

* * *

It stays on like that, after that party. Richie-and-Eddie become Richie and his girlfriend that week, and Eddie. Like an afterthought. It hurts more than Eddie would like to admit.

And then Richie leaves. Without a word. He’s there, and then he’s not, and then Eddie has to explain to the onslaught of girls in scrunchies and blue eyeliner that he doesn’t know where Richie went. He sits alone at lunch and bikes to school alone, and doesn’t share his homework with anyone.

Most of all, he waits for Richie to come back.

Alone.

* * *

The first day of senior year rains. Eddie walks to school and when he gets there, his hair is dripping wet and his sneakers make a horrible squelching noise every time he takes a step. The ginger girl from his home-ec class smiles at him on the way in. 

She’s nice to him. Her name is Beverly, and she shares her homework answers sometimes. She wears glasses like Richie used to. She’s kind of an outcast, but the good kind of outcast, like she’s too cool to be involved with everyone else. One time, when she tried to get a soda from the vending machine and she ended up with two because it malfunctioned or something, Eddie isn’t sure, she gave the extra one to him.

Eddie gets on with life. He starts talking to Beverly, becomes friends. She introduces him to her other outcast friends: Stan, and Ben, and then the pseudo-popular one, Bill, and Mike, who gets home-schooled. They all remind him of Richie, but Eddie can’t even remember if he’s remembering Richie properly anymore.

They share homework, and Stan lets them all borrow his books. Bill makes origami, and they spend countless hours trying to learn with him. Mike introduces them to the animals on his parents’ farm, and they spend days helping him muck out the pig pens. Ben sings when he’s not paying attention, and Eddie listens like he’s never heard something so beautiful.

The sun sets and the days pass. Richie still doesn’t come back, but Eddie moves on. He has Beverly now, and Bill, Stan, Mike, and Ben. He still has it in him to miss him, finds that deep aching hole in his heart, the sort that can only be left by one’s first love, but it starts to fill again. Not fully, not enough, but it fills, and he can only be glad for it.

* * *

Somehow, they get to graduation, and Eddie manages to convince his mom to let his friends sleep over, and to let them sleep out on the trampoline. He doesn’t know how he did it, but she lets them, and she gives them a bag of popcorn to take out there too. It’s more than he could ever hope for.

“Here’s to the end of high school,” Beverly declares, when the moon is high and it’s the latest Eddie’s ever stayed up. She holds up a singular popcorn kernel, eyes bright in the torchlight. Stan laughs at her, passes out popcorn for the rest of them, and then they’re toasting. “To good friends,” she says, once everyone’s kernel is in the air, “to old ones, to new ones. To endings and beginnings. To life after high school. To freedom. To the best people I’ve ever met in my entire fucking life!”

She lets out a cheer, and they all follow suit. Eddie’s laughter is muffled by popcorn for a few seconds, but after that, he’s grinning wider and wider and wider.

“Thanks for making high school bearable,” Bill says. “I don’t know what I’d do without you all.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you all either,” Stan says. It’s all so painfully heartfelt. “We’ll keep in touch after college, won’t we?”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” Beverly says. It’s more than a promise. “We’ll be friends forever.”

Friends forever sounds good. Friends forever sounds perfect. The hole left in Eddie’s heart, still gaping open and awful, fills ever so slightly more.

“Hey,” Eddie says. Everything he says now feels like it won’t even be remembered in the morning. Once the sun has come up, everything they’ve talked about will simply melt away. “Did I ever tell you guys about Richie?”

“Richie?” Ben asks, like a question he already knows the answer to. “You guys used to be friends, right?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. Sometimes I think it was more than that. We were like… made for each other, you know? Like whenever I was with him, we were whole.”

“He’s the one who was kind of a player, wasn’t he,” Beverly says. She doesn’t frame it as a question. She’s astoundingly assured of everything she says.

“Yeah, kinda,” Eddie agrees, because she’s right. “He left at the end of tenth grade. Didn’t even tell me. He just… wasn’t there anymore.”

They’re all quiet. Eddie takes solace in their breathing.

“I dunno,” he says, “I miss him. I wish he was here. I saw him for the first time on this trampoline. I just want to know what happened to him. Why he didn’t tell me he was leaving.”

“That’s rough,” Mike says. “Kind of a dick move.”

“Maybe he’ll be at graduation tomorrow,” Beverly suggests. “You know, harkening back to Ye Olde Days, or whatever. You’ll have to look out for him.”

No matter how high Eddie’s heart leaps at the idea, he can’t bring himself to believe her. He smiles, all of his heartbreak on display, and doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night. They fall asleep in a pile, pushed together in the centre of the trampoline. And yet, Eddie still feels cold.

* * *

Ben gets valedictorian. He makes a speech that makes Eddie tear up, talking about the inaccuracies of the past and the influence he holds over the future. It’s beautiful, and perfect, and so utterly Ben.

Beverly sniffles beside him, pretending like she’s doing anything but. Bill’s parents clap and cheer for all of them when they collect their diplomas, and again when they get to throw their caps in the air. Mike hugs them all so tight Eddie can’t breathe.

It’s almost nostalgic. The entire day passes like it’s a dream, like he’s dreaming. Beverly holds Eddie’s hand throughout the entire day, and Stan holds her other one. They trail through the school corridors like a barrier, not letting go for anyone or anything. Ben makes them pose for a photo, and then Bill demands that they get a picture of all of them, so they get his little brother to take one for them.

They go to Stan’s house for a post-grad dinner, and his mom makes pizza and fries and a homemade cake. It’s probably the most fun Eddie’s had in a while. After that, they go to a party held by one of the popular girls. She probably doesn’t even know their names, but Bill had gotten an invite and tonight, they’re all a package deal.

And that’s where Eddie sees him.

Richie.

Standing there, like he didn’t just up and leave one day. Like he didn’t abandon Eddie in the middle of high school, with not even a note. He didn’t even leave a phone number. He’s standing there, grinning at a girl in heavy mascara and a dress that looks like she already spilled a drink on it, like he’s always been there.

Eddie’s torn between punching him and hugging him.

Beverly must spot him at the same time as him, because she goes, “Oh, shiiit.” And then Stan goes, “Oh, shit,” as well, and Bill frowns at them.

Eddie says, “oh, my God.”

“You have to go speak to him,” Beverly says. “Punch him. Kick him. Demand to know where he’s been, and why he didn’t tell you. If you don’t, I will.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Stan says, at almost the exact same time. “You don’t owe him anything. He left you, he didn’t give you anything, you can just ignore him. You’re fully justified to ignore him. We’ll keep him away from you.”

“Or I can punch him.”

“Or you can ignore him.”

“I wanna talk to him,” Eddie says. He doesn’t. He does. He’s not sure. Richie looks like he’s hardly changed, still lanky and too tall, but he’s handsome, now. Rugged and kinda indie, but gorgeous. Really fucking hot. Eddie still looks like he’s stuck on the wrong side of thirteen, barely past puberty. “I have to talk to him.”

Stan shakes his head. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“I have to know,” Eddie says.

“Me too,” Beverly says. “I want to know what gave him the right to just leave our Eddie in the dust.”

“Alright, then,” Bill says. “Lets go. We’re officially your protection detail.”

“I don’t need a protection detail,” Eddie says, but he’s glad for their presence anyway, as they make their way towards Richie.

“Oi, Tozier!” Beverly shouts. It makes Eddie want to bury himself in a six foot deep hole, but it gets Richie’s attention. And then he’s coming towards them, and his eyes aren’t leaving Eddie’s.

“Holy shit, Eddie spaghetti, you got hot,” he says, which is so wildly inappropriate for the situation but it still manages to make Eddie’s knees go weak.

“Shame you weren’t there to see it,” Beverly says.

Pink-red floods his cheeks. It makes him look younger.

“You got taller,” Eddie offers. It’s sort of an olive branch.

Richie swallows. His Adam's apple bobs and Eddie can’t take his eyes off it. “Yeah, I guess I did. You did too.”

Eddie scoffs. “Barely.”

“We should talk,” Richie says. “Alone. Please.”

Eddie can’t help but ask, “What is there to say? You left, and you didn’t tell me anything.”

“It’s complicated,” Richie says. It’s an excuse if he’s ever heard one, but Eddie can’t remember the last time Richie truly lied.

“Of course it is,” Beverly says. Stan hisses at her to shut up but Eddie tunes them out. Now that Richie’s back, nothing else matters right now.

“Right,” Eddie says, “Complicated. Um. I just wanna know… Did you…”

“Did I love you?” Richie finishes for him. He smiles, loose and watery, like he hardly believes it. “Of course I did.”

That hole, that black hole deep in his heart. It fills. 

Eddie breathes. He keeps breathing. It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like it's been a while since i wrote anything it, but i was going thru my wips folder and trying to finish up a few pieces and came across this! if i remember right, it came from a prompt sort of thing on twitter (cannot for the life of me remember what it was exactly, sorry), and i started it literally six months ago, so like about time it got posted lmao.
> 
> anyway, hope u liked. would love a comment, if ur about that. please.


End file.
